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Hi-Pointe Café Bathrooms

The moment you hit the top floor of the Hi-Pointe Café, a sight appears that's so loud you have to squint. Inside the bathrooms is a caterwaul of rock & roll, the visual version: graffiti. A gusty deliverance of subcultural scribblejacksonpollocks every surface like a demented office birthday card. Graffiti sprawls in every mental and physical direction like a page torn from the diary of a schizophrenic -- an obviously troubled soul who also suffers from Tourette's syndrome, sexual dysfunction and gastrointestinal maladies.

You're not gonna find much loftiness or, alas, urban folk art of value within these little gems. Even somewhat sincere attempts at drunken introspection devolve into bitch-slapping halfway down the stall wall. After a while, those searching for poetic diamonds are reduced to observing that "Call the magic penis!" is nowhere near as creative as "Lemons are sour, beware of the evil in yellow!" and that the poem about world peace is nothing but a stoned pontification by a stupid fucking hippie -- exactly as some keen cultural critic has observed just beneath it.

But it's not what each tidbit of graffiti is saying but the sheer volume of what it collectively reveals that gives it such power. It's a drunken orgy of pissed-off horny toads. And whereas most establishments opt to routinely paint over bathroom graffiti in dark shades of denial (only Tangerine has mastered the art of compromise, offering blackboard walls that are erased once a week to make room for more dick jokes), the Hi-Pointe brazenly bares its underbelly like the many tattoos of its patrons.